Peter Valdes-Dapena is not what you’d call the sharpest automotive journalist on the blog. In fact, you could say that CNNMoney’s Automotive Editor has about as much killer instinct as Codium setchelli. In case you’re not up on your algae, this is the scribe who wrote a piece entitled “Why we need big hybrid SUVs.” So, now that Forbes Autos is out of the top ten slide show biz– in fact, out of biz entirely– Valdes-Dapena has decided to fill the gap. “What’s really killing Detroit” You want insight? We’ll give you insight! V-D identifies six issues confronting Detroit and gives six reasons why it’s no big friggin’ deal (i.e. why we shouldn’t let Motown’s meltdown get in the way of bailout billions). You got your SUV addiction (“They remain an important market segment for domestic automakers”); lack of small cars (“GM will also begin selling the new Chevrolet Cruze here in 2010”); lousy quality (“There’s no doubt that quality will continue to improve”); lack of hybrids (“GM now offers as more [sic] hybrid models – seven in all – than Toyota, which offers six”); union workers (“Pay isn’t the problem, it’s benefits. But the UAW has made significant concessions”); and your fat executive paychecks (“If big automakers do want help from Uncle Sam, they may have to agree to cuts in compensation). So what’s really killing Detroit? Photo captions like this: “GM CEO Rick Wagoner leads a company in trouble, but could anyone else have done better?” I know Pacific sea slugs that qualify.

Senator Harry Reid has revealed the devilish details of the bailout bill for Motown’s meltdown. First, as predicted here, the Dems are sticking to their guns. They’re insisting that the money come from the preexisting $700b Wall Street bailout, not the $25b Department of Energy Loans (which would incur the wrath of environmentalists everywhere). Under the Congressional bailout plan, Detroit could stick their snouts into $25b worth of Department of Treasury funds exactly one month after the authorization receives the President’s signature (should he decided to so affix). Automotive News [sub] crosses the i’s: “If enacted, the bill would direct the Treasury secretary to accept loan applications from companies three days after it becomes law and would require a decision on the applicant’s eligibility within 15 days. Disbursement of funds would have to occur within the following seven days.” Or what? They turn into a pumpkin? As for those strings attached, they’re no longer of the Jewish maternal nature (i.e. made of piano wire). “Companies getting loans would have to grant stock warrants or senior debt instruments to the government. Top industry executives would have to give up bonuses and golden parachutes; stockholders would receive no dividends.” Oversight board? Perhaps when Harry met Nancy they read TTAC. It’s nowhere to be seen. But there are other caveats…

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If you’re planning on buying a Ford this week, you might want to hold off a bit. Reuters reports that Ford will introduce Employee Pricing and cash incentives next week in an effort to turn around flagging sales. The incentive program will be available on most 2008 and 2009 Ford vehicles, with the notable exception of the all-new F150. But Ford isn’t the only struggling automaker trying to boost year-end sales and clear inventories through profit-munching incentives. GM’s “Year End Red Tag Sale” is also trying to squeeze sales from the dried-up American market, although added sales do little to prevent either automakers’ arterial spray of red ink. Toyota and Mazda are both trying aggressively drive sales as well, offering zero-percent financing on many models at a time when a lack of auto financing is dragging sales downwards. Ford’s offer will begin next Wednesday and will run through January 5, according to Reuters’ unnamed sources. If sales stay down, it won’t be a very merry Christmas at all this year.

Gooooooooooooooood morning, America! While America Slept (WAS) is a daily TTAC round-up of the news that happened in other continents and time-zones (such as California.) With a network of correspondents around the globe, TTAC provides round-the-clock coverage of everything that has wheels. Or that has its wheels coming off. Welcome to the morning zoo.

Lemon-Aid: Several people at Daimler’s Quality Assurance department in Sindelfingen are being investigated by Stuttgart’s public prosecutor, writes the Sueddeutsche Zeitung.  The allegation: They intentionally made cars with flaws. The fixing of which was outsourced. The companies that did the fixing fixed up the QA guys with expensive gifts and luxury trips. Damage: “In the high million Euros.” They might be doing time for that.

Porsche agrees with Obama: Porsche wants change. At the Volkswagen Supervisory Board Meeting this week, Porsche Chief “Wendy” Wiedeking will request that VW keeps the Golf VI (that’s Roman numeral 6) longer than until 2011 (as planned.) Should save some R&D money right here and now. Also to be changed: A “Committee for Special Business Relations.” That committee prevented know-how transfer from Audi to Porsche. Porsche thinks, the committee is superfluous. Also reported in the Sueddeutsche.

POTUS is a Renegade: Speaking of Obama, the London Times reports that the “The United States Secret Service revealed its not-so-secret code-name for president-elect Barack Obama last week: Renegade. If it sounds like the make of a car, that’s because it is. The Renegade is a concept car being developed by Chrysler, an open-topped jeep powered by electricity and diesel. Should the car ever make it into production then, like its namesake president-to-be, it, too, promises change – this time at 110 miles per gallon.” Gotta love them Brit sentences. Wait, there’s more!

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From the “with friends like these” department… The Detroit News reports that Michigan Senator Carl Levin met the press and announced his willingness to sacrifice GM CEO Rick Wagoner to get The General the bailout billions it needs thanks to Red Ink Rick’s myopia, intransigence and incompetence. “I’d be happy to tell (GM CEO) Rick Wagoner that he ought to consider resigning if that is the difference between getting this kind of support and not,” Levin said. So far, so good. And then… “The Detroit Democrat said the government ‘should have more than a say’ in management through an oversight board that would oversee the $25 billion in loans…” That’s just what GM needs to be more competitive: an oversight board beholden to politicians. Imagine what Toyota could do with one of those! Meanwhile, GM spokesman Greg Martin “declined to comment directly” on Levin’s remarks. “The global economic crisis that has put this industry in its current precarious position far exceeds any one individual.” Uh. Greg, you missed a few words there. Anyone care to help him out?

As the domestic auto companies appear to be circling the drain, there’s been debate about the extent of the impact of their failure on their supplier base, the impact on the industrial manufacturing base of the United States, even possible negative implications for Toyota and Honda. One party in all this that has rarely been mentioned are the consumers. While a few automotive analysts, pundits and bloggers have touched on how an implosion of the Detroit based car companies will affect consumers, almost all of the discussion has centered on whether or not people will buy a car from a bankrupt manufacturer, and the related issue of how product warrantees will be covered if their manufacturers go belly-up. A more basic consumer issue: how the loss of GM, Ford and Chrysler from the US auto market would affect the prices, features and technology of new cars.

While some critics of the domestics would have us believe that nobody is interested in cars built by the domestics, the fact remains that The Big 2.8 still sell millions of new cars a year in the North American market. October was a sales disaster for the domestics, with GM’s year to year sales falling 45 percent, Ford 33 percent and Chrysler seeing a decline of 37 percent. Foreign brands also saw declining sales but the decline was not as steep. With consumer confidence at the lowest level since just after the 9/11 attacks by Al-Qaeda, sales will not likely pick up anytime soon. The overall industry is on pace for a 10.6 million unit year, down from 16 million in 2007, and down over 40 percent from the record year of 2000. Still, between them the domestics sold just about 400k cars in October, good for 55 percent of the total US car & light truck market.

It’s a simple fact of business that competition puts downward pressure on prices. Critics of any bailout for the domestics like to say how their customers won’t go away; they’ll just buy Toyotas, Hondas, Nissans and Hyundais. What they don’t say is how much more expensive Toyondisssandais will be without competition from GM, Ford & Chrysler. You simply cannot remove competitors with a 55 percent share of a market without seeing the remaining vendors raise prices. Without competition from domestic competitors, the foreign brands have much less of an incentive to keep their prices down. Also, the structural costs of the domestics (at least until the cost reductions due to renegotiated UAW contracts kick in in  2010) create a price ceiling foreign brands can undercut. Take away that ceiling and watch Toyota raise its prices.

Conversely, take away that structural cost disadvantage for the domestics and you’d see lower prices right now on all brands, foreign and domestic, because of real price competition. Look at India. That market is very price sensitive. Just about all the global manufacturers are active in India, but the growing indigenous Indian auto industry led by Tata and Mahindra creates price competition for the transplants. Since Tata announced the sub $3000 Nano, Renault-Nissan, which already produces the low cost Dacia Logan, has announced a joint venture with Bajaj, maker of scooters and three-wheelers, to compete with the Nano at the new entry level price point.

A Detroit meltdown would affect more than just new car pricing. Say what you will about the domestics, but their presence in the market forces the other manufacturers to compete on features and technology as well as price. I’m not saying that a disappearance of The Big 2.8 would return the days of “radio and heater optional,” but there’d be less incentive for remaining companies to keep content level high. The Honda Accord’s initial market success in the late 1970s was partly attributable to a higher level of standard equipment than the domestics offered.

Regarding technology, the list of innovations introduced to the market by the domestics and their suppliers is almost endless: electric starters, seat belts, catalytic converters, modern refrigerants, car audio, defoggers (forced hot air and electrically heated), turbochargers, magnetically controlled dampers/shocks, and on and on. Without the billions the domestics spend on R&D ($15.6b for Ford & GM in 2007, not counting Chrysler which is privately held and doesn’t publish proprietary data or the moneys spent on R&D by domestic auto suppliers) the pace of technological improvements will slow significantly.

The domestic car companies’ disregard of their foreign competitors in the 1970s and their poor quality in the 1980s have so alienated consumers (and their now adult children) that it’s easy to see why so many people either don’t care if the domestics disappear or actively wish for their demise. If they think, however, that such a disappearance will be good for consumers, in terms of price, features and technology, they’re sadly mistaken.

Time for the United Auto Workers (UAW) to collect second-hand songbooks and ship ‘em over to their comrades– make that “union brothers” in China. Chinese taking our jobs? Wake up guys! Solidarity forever! The Chinese worker is taking it on the chin just like the working stiff in God’s Own Country. And let’s ignore the fact for a while that FICA, SECA, COBRA, and VEBA are not part of the Chinese language. PSA Peugeot Citroën, an affiliate of Dongfeng Motor in China, has “decided not to renew the contracts” (translation: has fired) 1000 workers on their Wuhan site, Gasgoo reports. Volkswagen, which depends on China for 15 percent of its worldwide auto sales, gave the Chinese equivalent of pink slips to 700 people at their Changchun factory. According to Chinese media reports, Ford, BMW, Chery, and untold more are busy. Busy thinning out their working masses, that is. Where did all the thousand flowers go?

Renault delayed their entry as a Chinese producer until kingdom come, or a turnaround of the world economy, whatever comes last. Even grimmer news from Chinese car dealers: 40 percent are losing money, and in a third of China’s car dealers everybody will lose their jobs, because they will close. Less jobs are yet to come.

The good new times are over in China. According to reports published by J.D. Power, the increase in auto sales has slowed down to 6.7 percent this year, as opposed to 22 percent in 2007 and 26 percent in 2006. An analyst at the usually well-informed Nomura bank in Japan sees China’s auto sales growth slowing to 3.8 percent next year, and 6.4 percent in 2010.

China’s car industry, which wanted to crank out 10m units by year’s end, recently slashed its 2008 sales targets to eight million, said Thomas Callarman, an operations management professor at the China Europe International Business School. This comes after a huge ramp-up of production in anticipation of unbridled demand. Callarman is chiding his Chinese children. “Two years ago, some of the same manufacturers were complaining they were already having over-capacity, and then they were building more capacity.”

Take that smile off your face, folks, this is serious. A concerned International Monetary Fund said that last year, China accounted for 27 percent of global economic growth. That’s more than any other nation. Hu Jintao, China’s Paramount Leader, agrees. “Steady and relatively fast growth in China is in itself an important contribution to international financial stability and world economic growth,” Hu said at the G20 meeting, pointing to China’s recent stimulus package. Even the grand Chinese stimulus package may not be so grand. Rumors of re-packaging of previously announced plans are all over the press.

The dire news even reached Europe. “We will see much, much slower growth in China,” said Ivan Hodac, himself Secretary General of the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA). In a rare case of economic insight, Hodac then prognosticated: “In an economic slowdown, automakers are typically the second sector to be hit after the construction industry, because, next to housing, cars are consumers’ most expensive purchases.” Never thought of that.

Not to be left out, Barron’s also weighs in on the issue. For some unfathomable reason, Barron’s is more concerned with ad sales of China’s internet portal Sina.com. Who’s to blame? “Autos, real estate and financial, the companies three biggest categories of advertisers, have all been hit hard in the slowdown. (If you thought China was immune, think again.)” OK, OK, we’re sinking. I mean, thinking.

As a sign that things must be as bad as can be in the Middling Kingdom, even Aljazeera finds the issue worthy of a closer look. Usually Aljazeera is an outlet for videos by bearded people living in caves in inhospitable areas of Afghanistan, and who employ pilots who can start, but not land. Now Aljazeera writes: “China’s industrial output has slipped to a seven year low as the global economic slowdown continues to batter the world’s fourth largest economy, eroding demand for Chinese exports and causing manufacturers to throttle back on production.” Their favorite video producer hasn’t claimed responsibility for that one– yet.

Even in the most poisonous flower is a little bit of honey, a possibly Chinese proverb says. After two months of decline, sales recovered slightly in October, rising 8.4 percent on-year. This only after Toyota, Volkswagen and others put piles of Yuan on the hoods of new models.

Long-term growth potential in China remains rosy. Only 20 people for every 1,000 own a car in China, compared with more than 500 per 1,000 in Europe and way more than 700 per 1,000 in the United States.  Once the Chinese can afford a ride again, they will buy. Some scholars of Milton Friedman and Darwin even think that the current “slow down now is to some extent beneficial to the industry because we’ll be taking out a lot of the inefficient capacity.” Roger that says Raymond Tsang, a partner at the consulting firm Oliver Wyman. He’s not alone in foretelling a consolidation amongst the 100 or so auto makers in China. Keep those songbooks coming!

Barron‘s, the weekend edition from those warm and fuzzy people at the Wall Street Journal, is little known outside the financial world, and read by everyone inside it. Today Barron’s is hyping Honda stock, big time.  Writer Jay Palmer loves him some Honda. He cites the 200 FCX Clarity fuel cell cars motoring around Santa Monica as clear evidence of technology leadership. Never mind that the hydrogen economy is about as likely as the Moller Skycar. More urgently, “amid a savage sales slump that has led the Detroit Three to plead for government aid, threatens to bankrupt General Motors and has battered most European and Asian vehicle makers, the Japanese car manufacturer is a standout.” Honda, along only with Subaru, managed to keep unit sales above 2007 levels throughout the first nine months of 2008. “Recently, however, the downturn’s severity has taken a toll on Honda. Its U.S. sales plunged 25% in October, but that still was better than the overall industry’s 32% slide. Honda now expects its 2008 U.S. sales to be off 2.4%, the first yearly decline in 15 years. But the company remains confident; it will open a new plant this month in Greensburg, Ind., that soon will be turning out 30,000 vehicles a month. And it has opted not to follow Toyota, Nissan and others in offering 0% financing.” That last bit is interesting. Honda isn’t following Toyota’s lead into the Saved by Zero swamp.

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According to Canada’s Financial Post, Toyota and and Honda are freaking-out about the potential failure of Detroit’s three car companies. “We’re very concerned” about a Detroit meltdown, ToMoCo spokesman Mike Goss told the Post. “In the past couple of days I’ve been asked ‘Wouldn’t it be great for Toyota if others fail?’ We think the opposite is true.” Toyota is concerned about a Motown meltdown’s catastrophic effect on its NA supplier base; “The vehicles Toyota builds in North America contain an average of 75% domestically sourced parts and systems, and Toyota is reliant on many of the same suppliers used by GM, Ford Motor Co. or Chrysler LLC. The Japanese automakers are working to identify which suppliers have the biggest exposure to the Detroit firms. They are also developing emergency plans in the event they need to replace a company providing them with parts. “Everything’s on the table about what we might have to do,” Mr. Goss said. Meanwhile, the industry shills at the Center for Automotive Research seized on the comments to predict, you guessed it, carmageddon…

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With my private jet finally out of fuel, we decided to crash land in North Korea. It turns out to have been a wise choice, because aside from the fact that it’s a tyrannical dictatorship with millions of starving people, there are no “Saved by Zero” ads from Toyota. So that’s a hint of silver lining. Also, while my Gulfstream had poor cell phone reception, I’m able to make all the phone calls I want from Kim Jong Il’s pool house, which he has been kind enough to lend to me. All he wanted in return, oddly enough, was a box of Ray Bans and an the newest DVDs. So, after surrendering my copy of “Employee of the Month” to the Dear Leader, I’m now able to podcast freely.

According to the AP, “Toyota Motor Corp. said Friday that for now it is sticking with plans to open its new Mississippi plant in 2010 despite media reports that Japan’s top automaker is mulling a delay.” Mississippi was originally supposed to get Highlander production.. Those plans ran aground on $4 a gallon gas. In a fit of hybrid mania, Toyota Mississippi jumped off the Highlander horse and onto the Prius this past July… just in time to see crude oil prices peak and roll over. Remember all that talk of building a Scion-like separate Prius brand? You have to think that plan is on hold. “Earlier this month, Toyota said its net profit for the July-September quarter plunged 69 percent. The car maker also downgraded its full-year profit forecast to 550 billion yen ($5.5 billion) — about a third of last year’s result. Executive Vice President Mitsuo Kinoshita said after the earnings release that the company had convened an ‘Emergency Profit Improvement Committee’ to cut costs and maximize revenues. Toyota is also assessing its manufacturing operations by ‘re-examining aspects such as the timing and scale of new projects.'”

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Can you believe that GM used to claim that their foreign ops would prop-up the sinking North American market while they got their shit together? I mean, these are the same guys that were busy touting the advantages of a world car. Anyone who doubted that it’s a small world after all should have a gander at October sales stats across the pond [via Bloomberg UK]. “Registrations dropped to 1.13 million vehicles last month from 1.33 million a year earlier, the Brussels-based European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association said today in a statement. Sales for the first 10 months fell 5.4 percent to 12.8 million vehicles, accelerating from a 4.4 percent contraction through September.” And who got whacked the hardest? “GM’s sales in Europe fell 25 percent to 94,479 vehicles, with the Saab brand reporting a 28 percent plunge… Registrations in Europe by Toyota slumped 24 percent to 54,612 cars. Asia’s largest carmaker, leading GM in global auto sales this year, posted a 69 percent plunge in quarterly net income on Nov. 6. Deliveries of its Lexus brand fell 32 percent.” So, that’s the mass market, then. How about the top end?

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Yesterday, we reported that the European Commission threatened to drag Germany in front of the European High Court again– if Germany dares to pass a revamped Volkswagen Gesetz (VW Law.) Yesterday evening, the German parliament flipped a whole aviary worth of birds in the direction of Brussels, and passed the face-lifted law with an overwhelming majority. Result for the time being: VeeDub’s soon majority-owner Porsche will have to kowtow to the state of Lower Saxony, owner of a paltry 20.1 percent of the shares. Porsche must ask for their OK on major issues. On one issue, Porsche doesn’t even need to ask. Lower Saxony will say “nein, nein, nein” to Porsche booking VW’s profits as theirs. Und now European Trade Commissar Charlie McCreevy will file papers “before Christmas,” and the contemptuous Bundesrepublik Deutschland will face the judges of the European High Court. Again. The court will rule (anybody guess how?) Germany will have to implement the wishes of the court again (anybody guess whether they will?) The never-ending saga continues. In the meantime…

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The question presumes that A) Detroit’s ailing automakers ARE America’s automobile industry and B) using our tax money to protect Ford, GM and Chrysler from their own incompetence would benefit the U.S. car industry. Not true, on both counts. And by ignoring the flawed assumptions underpinning the argument for raiding the average American’s wallet, bailout proponents are misleading what they condescendingly call “Main Street.” To which I say no, no, and Hell no.

Clearly, unequivocally, the American auto industry does not consist of Ford, GM and Chrysler. In fact, these three Detroit-based companies COMBINED no longer control the lion’s share of the American automotive market. Foreign-owned manufacturers– the so-called transplants– account for over 50 percent of all new vehicle sales within the U.S. For better or worse, they constitute the core of the American automobile industry.

Feel free to debate amongst yourselves whether or not the fact that the transplants’ profits return to their home country is a crucial difference— just as long as you understand that Ford and GM’s North American divisions have been living off of their foreign ops’ profits for at least the last two years. And that this financial flow inwards is decades old.

And don’t forget another, equally salient detail: Detroit-based car companies are, right now, importing hundreds of thousands of cars and millions of parts from outside U.S. borders. For more than a decade, Ford, GM and Chrysler have been Hell bent on “saving” the American automobile industry by destroying it, sending U.S. manufacturing jobs to Canada, Mexico, South Korea, China and elsewhere.

Anyway, if we accept the idea that BMW, Mercedes, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai and Nissan’s American production facilities are a vital and yes, equal part of the American automotive scene, it raises an interesting and completely ignored question: is the federal bailout for Detroit good for the REST of the American automobile industry? Does it “save” them?

The surprising answer is yes. By supporting Detroit’s inefficiencies, a bailout would help maintain a suitably high “floor” for new car prices. So your tax subsidy to Detroit would protect the transplants’ profits, and by extension, their American workers.

On the downside, a federal bailout screws the consumer. It would help prop-up new car prices, stifling the kind of competition that leads to innovation, and increased value-for-money. As far as the non-Detroit-related taxpayer’s personal pocketbook is concerned, letting American-owned automakers fail is the best possible course of action. The American consumer would get a better product at a lower price, for no extra charge.

Sorry. I know: it’s about jobs, jobs, jobs. Inherent in the idea of “saving” the [strictly defined] American automobile industry is “saving” American automotive jobs, upon which the entire U.S. economy supposedly rests.

Again, you can discuss the “ripple effect” of a combined Ford, GM and Chrysler C11 on the wider U.S. economy without my interference. But however great the impact, it doesn’t alter the truth: the word “save” here means “subsidize,” to no appreciable end. I mean, is there any one amongst you who truly believes that injecting $25b of federal capital into Ford, GM and Chrysler will put them back on their feet, so that their workers and products can compete with non-Detroit automakers? If so, you simply haven’t been paying attention.

And once we’re doing a reality check, if saving the American automobile industry is a euphemism for “giving The Big 2.8 a bridging loan so they can get healthy and competitive at some point in the not to distant future,” we need to face facts: Ford, GM and Chrysler will have to shed jobs anyway. Bailout or no bailout, they’re too damn big for the U.S. car market, now that the new car “bubble” (which they created) has burst.

Enough of this misdirection. Let’s get down to brass tacks. The real question is this: is Detroit worth saving?

No, it’s not. Not in its current form. In this I refer you to General Motors Death Watch 1, wherein I proposed that GM should be parted out. I asserted that its current management should take a hike and its constituent brands reconstituted as independent car companies. (Or not.) In the last three years, I’ve seen nothing to dissuade me from this opinion. As for Ford, it too needs to shed brands and reinvent itself. Chrysler, well, Chrysler’s a basket case. Only Jeep may live on.

So yes, the American automobile industry is worth saving. Only it’s not in any real danger. The only part of the U.S. car biz that’s on the ropes is the Detroit contingent. And the only way to save that bit is to let it fail, so that it may be reborn. But no matter how you slice it, and sliced it will be, “bailing it out” is against the interests of the American taxpayer AND the American consumer who, after all, must foot the bill.

At the end of the proverbial day, a federal bailout for Ford, GM and Chrysler would simply prolong the automakers’– and their workers’– agony. Yes, there will be pain. Lots and lots of pain. But sometimes the more painful the mistake, the more important the lesson. This is one of those times. Detroit can not be saved from the reality that they’ve studiously, callously, stubbornly ignored. Nor should they be.

While Michigan Governer Jennifer Granholm spreads hysteria and misinformation in aid of her state’s struggling automakers, Indiana Governer Mitch Daniels is taking far more honest position on the the proposed bailout. “Let’s give Congress a chance, but there’s nothing in recent history that suggests they have an answer for this,” Daniels tells the Indianapolis Star. “The only thing we know for certain is the way they’ve been doing business does not work and throwing taxpayer dollars after it won’t make it work.” And before you accuse Daniels of throwing more vulnerable states to the wolves, consider that Indiana is the fifth-biggest auto manufacturer in the union, with some 61k auto industry jobs. Oh yeah, and his state’s unemployment fund is running low, thanks to the hard times. Daniels, who is in DC to receive an award from Governing Magazine for his accomplishments as a first-term governor, knows that once bailouts start there’s no telling where they will end. “If they send money, we’ll cash the check,” says Daniels. “But I didn’t come down here with a tin cup. I just think caution is the watch word. And I don’t know where it ends. I didn’t notice anyone throwing money at the RV industry and that cost Indiana a lot of jobs. Our position all along has been that any solution has got to be a solution leading to long-term viability.” Needless to say, short-term bridge loans don’t meet that criteria. Then again, maybe Daniels’ principled stand has more to do with the fact that the major manufacturers in his state (Toyota, Honda, Subaru) are doing fine, and aren’t asking anyone for a bailout.